JESSE PESTA

I am an editor, writer and photographer currently haunting New York City. My day job is editing long-form narrative and investigative projects on Page One of The Wall Street Journal.

I’ve lived and worked as a journalist in Hong Kong, New Delhi, New York and small-town America, where my family published a century-old local newspaper.

You know it’s inevitable you’d be invited to follow me on Twitter. @jessepesta

JOURNALISM

I’m responsible for many of The Wall Street Journal’s most ambitious long-form reporting projects. In WSJ lingo these are the Page One “leders.” In 2013 I was a primary editor of the Journal’s book on Pope Francis. I edit Page One “A-Heds,” too.

This means working with extraordinary writers world-wide on stories including:

Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s embrace of Islam at his mother’s urging. Fresh doubts about the veracity of Truman Capote’s masterwork “In Cold Blood.” Facebook’s outing of two gay students in Texas. A man who got a federal criminal record because he mishandled a clogged toilet. An Indian woman’s six-year descent into all-but-incurable tuberculosis.

Not to mention stories about:

Vietnam's bride kidnappers. America’s housing crisis. Stretch limos that are too long. Midwives who murder babies. A Chinese family’s nightmare. FBI informants who snitch on their girlfriends. Getting naked in Vermont.

I edit the Journal’s examination of the erosion of personal privacy ~ a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

In early 2013 I edited the WSJ’s powerful portraits of the young woman who was raped in New Delhi, and her close friend who was with her during the attack. These two profiles reveal more about India than almost anything else you will find on the subject.

I edit the investigation into the global threat of “extremely drug resistant” XDR tuberculosis. This award-winning project exposed the risk of drug-resistant TB in the U.S. and on Europe’s doorstep. It revealed intellectual flaws in the World Health Organization’s strategy to defeat TB. And ultimately it forced policy change in India that might well save hundreds of thousands of lives, provided India follows through on its promises.

As a reporter I’ve written about:

The world’s fastest ocean liner. An unusual parade in the American midwest. India’s out-of-date doorknob technology. The slaughter of Nepal’s god-king and royal family. Great Britain’s unhappy mercenaries.

In 2009 I traveled as a photographer to Cambodia for a project on slavery for Marie Claire.

In 2001 I reported on the September 11 terror attacks from Islamabad, Pakistan.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Photographic work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Marie Claire, The Daily Beast, dearly departed Newsweek and other publications, and has been exhibited at the Exit Art gallery, New York; Photographic Gallery, Front St., New York; Chrystie Street Gallery, Chrystie St., New York; ABC No Rio, Rivington St., New York; the Southern Indiana Center for the Arts; and the Edward Hopper House, Nyack, N.Y.

The most recent photography can be seen at Starve Hollow Road, named for the “hollow” (in local parlance) where I grew up.

GALLERIES

NEWS

For all your Jesse Pesta news, there’s always Twitter @jessepesta. Meanwhile:

May 16, 2013: The WSJ’s privacy project, “Watched,” is honored with the Deadline Club’s Public Service Award. The Journal’s tuberculosis investigation receives the science award.

Describing the TB project, the judges said: “The series has the potential to save many lives around the world ~ possibly our own.”

October 2012-Spring 2013: Served as master’s program adviser for investigative reporting at the Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism at Columbia University’s graduate journalism program for the 2012-13 academic year.

April 16, 2012: “The End of Privacy,” The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the erosion of privacy in the U.S., is named a finalist for the Pulitzer prize in explanatory reporting.

January 2012: The “Federal Offenses” project, exposing the surprising ways in which little-known laws can snare unwary Americans, wins a top National Press Foundation award.

June 3-August 5, 2011: Selected photos on exhibit at the Exit Art gallery in New York as part of the gallery’s Contemporary Slavery exhibition.

March 26, 2011: Represented The Wall Street Journal in a presentation at Yale Law School to discuss personal privacy and the online advertising business.

September 25, 2010: Spoke about my friendship in India with Danny Pearl at Music for Humanity, a concert commemorating Danny’ life and work.

View a video of these remarks, which begin about a minute in.

July 1, 2010:Famed Liner Steers Clear of Scrapyard” is published in the WSJ, breaking the news that the tiny group of ship lovers I wrote about earlier on Page One are about to pull off the impossible and buy their beloved SS United States superliner.

Accompanied by photos of the rarely seen interior of the ship, and a video.

April/May, 2010: The WSJ’s Iran coverage, “Hearts, Minds and Blood,” wins the Society of Professional Journalists award for outstanding foreign correspondence, the Overseas Press Club award for outstanding reporting abroad, the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and the Payne Award for Ethics.

April 8, 2010: Represented the WSJ on a Nieman Foundation panel on fairness in journalism.

Oct. 3, 2009: Interview on WABC’s “John Batchelor Show” about the SS United States:


MAKE CONTACT

Jesse | at | JessePesta | dot | com

Twitter: @jessepesta

Copyright © 2004-2013 Jesse Pesta
All rights reserved

Jesse Pesta